What is Digg?86 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+43most of the time if you remove the tiny watch battery, the password will reset too
- jramos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38I remember in high school getting past someone's BIOS password by just overflowing the buffer. That is, smacking the ***** out of the keyboard as the computer was starting up... :-)
- jer2eydevil88, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Excellent and extremely useful for fixing older laptop computers that have been in storage for years! I hope this makes it to the front page.
- Zanneth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Hey, it's better than prying your computer apart to remove the battery.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14to get around the 20-30 mins to drain thing, just create a short across the 2 terminals where the batery usually is. 5 seconds of that and you're done.
- iSEPIC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12You don't have to pay, dumbass, just scroll-down.
- x2wenty4x, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7not always true with older computers.
- chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6this list is ancient, and most of these don't work on anything newer than a pentium era motherboard.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Excellent find indeed!
I can remember bypassing the BIOS password on my mom and dad's Dell Dimension just by R'ingTFM and finding the section called "what to do if you forgot your BIOS password". It was just a simple jumper reset on the motherboard. :) - rewritable, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7most boards also have a BIOS reset jumper too. Usually located near the battery.
- RetroRufio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You can also use the BIOS jumper on the motherboard. Just switch it to pins 2 and 3 (as opposed to 1 and 2), reboot, shutdown, replace the jumper to its original position, and boot up. This resets the BIOS as well, and it's not nearly as painful as screwing with the battery.
P.S. Have some pliers or tweezers ready, the jumper is pretty tiny. - fohat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5if it halts, just restart ;)
- nogami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I don't know what you're getting at, he was correct... Shorting the pins can reset the BIOS password. Just leave the plastic jumper off and short across the pins for a couple seconds with a screwdriver.
- lolwtfhaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Someone gave me an old Toshiba laptop, I think 133mhz-- with a bios power-on password. There was virtually no way to reset the BIOS. After much googling I found instructions to destroy a parallel cable and short something like 8, 12, 13, 15, 21 together and plug it in. MUCH to my surprise, it worked!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It would boot to a cd, so i used a linux utility cmospwd on a knoppix live cd to find the password and reset it...
http://s-t-d.org/tools.html - BlakeEM, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7This always worked for me, even on 10+ year old PCs. Also be sure to unplug the power supply as well.
- f3l1x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4(I digg it) .. usually a jumper to discharge the capacitor as well is needed. never have I come across a system I couldn't get into once I had my hands on it ( in infosec possession is 10/10ths). This does make it easier . also google "manufactures default passwords master list"
- lolwtfhaha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Here's a link since I just made up those numbers:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Hardware/Laptops_Notebooks/Q_21804851.html - jramos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4This comment system sucks ass. Paste the above link... Christ Almighty.
- devoinregress, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4where was this before I bricked that laptop I found in the dumpster...
- cazabam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Most laptops are immune to such backdoors, and retain the password without power."
They have battery-backed CMOS just like a PC. For example, on a thinkpad the BIOS battery is tucked under the lip of the actually battery compartment. Disconnect it's 2 pin plug for 15 seconds and you're in. - spacebar14, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This was cool ...back in the 90's.
- wleara, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is pathetic. Most of this data became outdated 10 years ago. I can assure you there is no Dell computer with a BIOS backdoor password "Dell".
- jramos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Well, if you have a system that's turned on and you want to kill the BIOS password, you can always generate an invalid checksum to force a reset of the settngs on reboot. (Note: I am not responsible for you running this code.)
@echo off
echo o 70 2e >d.scf
echo o 71 ff >>d.scf
echo q >>d.scf
debug d.scf
echo q >>d.scf
debug bios.txt
This assumes, of course, you can actually get the machine turned on. :-) - ericnmu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Write it down next time... or dont steal laptops.
- looksliketrent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3These corporations are counting on the general public not knowing them.
- mcflynnthm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I feel this is really, really old. I remember having this list way back in the day. And it certainly wasn't 100% effective.
- drakethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I have a BIOS right now that has a setup and boot password set as enabled yet pressing enter on boot makes it go right past the password prompt. Of course the password is set because it won't let you into the BIOS but it will still boot up. Shows how companies don't even really test the bios code as much as they should these days.
- nogami, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not necessarily. He may have just had a password set to alter the BIOS settings, not prevent the computer from booting.
- jzimmerman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Not if your power supply is AT ;-)
- inque, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Recently I also tried resetting the password of the bios in one of our old computers in the company, but after unplugging everything and taking out the batter for at least 4 hours, it still didn't work.
Luckily I was able to find a program at this site http://www.cgsecurity.org and it works 90% of the time - NeoPlatonist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Some of the passwords were extremely obvious; take PASSWORD for instance. Now that's high end security for you.
- MisterCookie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This will be a godsend for some computers at my school, which by default don't allow booting from a CD, preventing me from using my DSL Live CD.
- Wilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A CR-2032 is hardly a watch battery; it's the size of a watch face itself :P
- command-tab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A number of laptops store passwords in nonvolatile "NVRAM," which is nothing more than a simple serial EEPROM. Data stored here can remain without power for many many years, although there are a number of tricks to get at the contents.
- brokencity, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2bit old...
But always good to see. - ccanni1028, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2drakethegreat - There is a difference between a BIOS password and a boot password.
- datastorageguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2ummm pop the cmos chip, wait a few minutes, and viola!
- wrupp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Modern Lenovo/IBM thinkpads (R-40, T-40's on up) use a security chip on the MB. If the supervisor or power on password is forgotten, you're out of luck unless you want to mess with hacking at the security chip (It involves soldering to the legs of the very small chip). This is offered by some as a service, and it is still cheaper than a new laptop. I don't know of any other solutions for a POP. If someone else has something that works please post it!
- bayliss, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I had to do this 2 weeks ago, i obtained a list of 'backdoor' bios passwords and typed away for 10 minutes trying all combinations. none of them worked in my case,
The physical removal of the battery is fast and effective.
As BlakeEM says, its critical to unplug the powersupply from the PC before removing the CMOS battery. otherwise the mainboard still has power and the removal of the battery does nothing (even if the power supply isn't ON)
(I didn't have to wait 15 minutes btw) - MasterDwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2any major time servicing pc's and you'd have to go with removing battery or clearing CMOS. Interesting to know the backdoor passwords, IF they indeed work.
- tehgooch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Do this at my store so I can look like a genius and possibly get a promotion.
- rompom7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1pull the jumper off,
put the jumper on,
boot the computer and hit delete,
do the hokey pokey and turn around
thats what its all about. - vistic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If they're counting on the general public not knowing them, then they shouldn't make them something that is likely to be the very first password someone, who had NO clue what it was, would guess...
- t22design, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know my MSI motherboard explicitly states that damage can be done by powering up whilst the CMOS jumper is in the reset position.
I guess it varies, but personally its not worth the risk.
If you want to take the extra steps of reconnecting the power, rebooting and then disconnecting the power, whilst running the risk of killing your motherboard its up to you. - jramos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hmmm... apparently Digg doesn't like 'echos' in comments...
Try here: http://neworder.box.sk/news/4949 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Easiest way to do this is to:
Disconnect Computer from power source (also remove laptop battery if a laptop)
Pop out CMOS battery
Wait 10-15 seconds
Put everything back together.
You're set. No password will be set at all. Everything will be default as the day it was manufactured (as far as BIOS is concerned that is). - Pyrogen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And they stated that they were the authors, where?
- Alchemeron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2One of the AMI backdoor passwords is "PASSWORD"!?!? Whoever decided that is a son of a bitch.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2backdoor passwords are the ***** idea ever. someone ALWAYS works them out, and once their out there there's no fixing the problem. smack on the wrist to everysinlge manufacturer on that list
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